AG#11 No idea porter-y kind of thing...

[calumscott]

So the final wort tastes...

...really really very nice! Not harsh, good and bitter, lots of hop aroma, vanilla coming through...

So I have high hopes after all that. It might just turn out good.

 

[graysalchemy]

Sounds like another winning brew calum :twisted: :twisted:

 

[calumscott]

Another seat if the pants make it up as you go along f**k up of a brew more like!!!

Happy with the wort though, so fingers crossed...

 

[calumscott]

Hook Norton yeast pitched this morning.

Now the long wait to see whether or not I've just wasted a day... :lol:

 

[Antony]

Looks like you may have accidentally made a winner!

 

[calumscott]

Racked it and dry hopped with 80 (yes 80!) grams of Summit in 30l...

It's still not bad, I think with this extra pile of hops and plenty of time to mellow out it might just be ok. It's still nice and sweet and the caramel and vanilla is starting to come through a bit more.

Seems to have stopped at 1.017 which is giving me around 6%, about right for a robust beer methinks.

Even if this turns out awesome, I'll be too scared to ever try it again... :lol:

 

[calumscott]

Well that's been a week on the dry hops...

...and it's starting to come together! The vanilla is coming through more with the caramel, the little harshness from all that black malt is mellowing (I knew sticking with the challenger for bittering was a good idea), it's stopped at 1.019 which when I've primed it should take it to the six percent I wanted.

Bt the best bit is the dry hop. Summit tastes like under-ripe oranges... So I've now got caramel, vanilla and bitter orange all going on in there. Now that sounds like a decent pudding to me. If only I'd had some cocoa nibs...

Another week on the hops for maximum fruitiness and it will be bottled.

Confidence in this one is growing. :thumb:

 

[calumscott]

Bottled the first half tonight...

...one final twist...

Vanilla Sugar for priming!

Here's where punctuation is important...

This is amazingly good beer.
This is, amazingly, good beer.

One of the above is true. :lol:

 

[calumscott]

Right, test bottle opened!!

Matches the cat...

...tastes ok so far. I'm going to put it away for a long while to round out though.